The School For Good And Evil

In The Forest Primeval

A School For Good And Evil

Two Towers Like Twin Heads

One For The Pure

One For The Wicked

Try To Escape You'll Always Fail

The Only Way Out Is

Through A Fairy Tale

The Princess

Rarity had waited all her life to be kidnapped. But tonight, all the other ponies of Ponyville writhed in their beds. If the School Master took them, they'd never return. Never lead a full life. Never see their family again. Tonight these ponies dreamt of a red-eyed thief with the body of a beast, come to rip them from their sheets and stifle their screams.

Rarity dreamt of princes instead.

She had arrived at a castle ball thrown in her honor, only to find the hall filled with a hundred suitors and no other mares in sight. Here for the first time were stallions who deserved her, she thought as she walked the line. Mane shiny and thick, muscles taut through shirts, skin smooth and tan, beautiful and attentive like a princes should be. But just as she came to one who seemed better than the rest, with brilliant blue eyes and ghostly white mane, the one who felt like Happily Ever After . . . a hammer broke through the walls of the room and smashed the princes to shards.

Rarity's eyes opened to morning. The hammer was real. The princes were not.

"Father, if I don't sleep nine hours, my eyes look swollen."

"Everypony's prattling on that you're to be taken this year," her father said, nailing a misshapen bar over her bedroom window, now completely obscured by locks, spikes, and screws. "They tell me to shear your mane, muddy up your face, as if I believe in all this fairy-tale hogwash. But no one's getting in here tonight. That's for sure." He pounded a deafening crack as exclamation.

Rarity rubbed her ears and frowned at her once lovely window, now something you'd see in a witch's den. "Locks. Why didn't anyone think of that before?"

"I don't know why they all think it's you," he said,  brown mane slicked with sweat. "If it's goodness that School Master fellow wants, he'll take Mrs. Cake's daughter."

Rarity tensed. "Pumpkin Cake?"

"Perfect foal that one is," he said. "Brings her father home-cooked lunches at the mill. Gives the leftovers to the poor hag at town square."

Rarity heard the edge in her father's voice. She had never once cooked a full meal for him, even after her mother died.

Naturally she had a good reason (the oil and smoke would clog her pores) but she knew it was a sore reason. This didn't mean her father had gone hungry. Instead, she offered him her own favorite foods: mashed beets, broccoli stew, boiled asparagus, steamed spinach. He hadn't ballooned into a blimp like Pound's father, precisely because she hadn't brought him home-cooked lamb fricassees and cheese soufflés at the mill. As for the poor hag in the town square, that old crone, despite claiming hunger day after day, was fat. And if Pumpkin Cake had anything to do with it, then she wasn't good at all, but the worst kind of evil.

Rarity smiled back at her father. "Like you said, it's all hogwash." She swept out of bed and slammed the bathroom door. She studied her face in the mirror. The rude awakening had taken its toll. Her waist-long mane, the color of spun moderate indigo, didn't have its usual sheen. Her Moderate azure eyes looked faded, her luscious white lips a touch a dry. Even the glow of her creamy white coat had dulled. But still a princess, she thought. Her father couldn't see she was special, but her mother had. "You are too beautiful for this world, Rarity," she said with her last breaths. Her mother had gone somewhere better and now so would she.

Tonight she would be taken into the woods. Tonight she would begin a new life. Tonight she would live out her fairy tale.

And now she needed to look the part.

To begin, she rubbed fish eggs into her coat, which smelled of dirty hooves but warded off spots. Then she massaged in pumpkin puree, rinsed with goat's milk, and soaked her face in a mask of melon and turtle egg yolk. As she waited for the mask to dry, Rarity flipped through a storybook and sipped on her cucumber juice to keep her coat dewy soft. She skipped to her favorite part of the story, where the wicked hag is rolled down a hill in a nail-spiked barrel, until all that remains is her bracelet, Rarity felt her thoughts drift off to cucumbers. Suppose there were no cucumbers in the woods? Suppose other princesses had depleted the supply? No cucumbers! She'd shrivel, she'd wither, she'd-

Dried melon flakes fell on the page. She turned to the mirror and saw her brow creased in worry. First ruined sleep and now wrinkles. At the rate she'd be a hag by afternoon. She relaxed her face and banished thoughts of vegetables.

As for the rest of Rarity's beauty routine, it could fill a dozen storybooks (suffice it to say it included goose feathers, pickled potatoes, and  cream of cashews). Two hours of rigorous grooming later, she stepped from the house in a breezy purple dress, sparking glass slippers, and mane in an impeccable curl. She had one last day before the School Master's arrival and planned to use each and every minute to remind him why she, and not Pound Cake or Pumpkin Cake or Fleur De Lis or any other any impostor, should be kidnapped.

Rarity's best friend lived in a cemetery. Given her loathing of things grim, gray, and poorly lit, one would except Rarity to host visits at her cottage or find a new best friend. But instead, she had climbed to the house atop Graves Hill every day this week, careful to maintain a smile on her face, since that was the point of a good deed after all.

To get there, she had to walk nearly a mile from the bright lakeside cottages, with green eaves and sun-drenched turrets, towards the gloomy edges of the forest. Sounds of hammering echoed through cottage lanes as she passed fathers boarding up doors, mothers stuffing scarecrows, colts and fillies hunched on porches, muzzles buried in storybooks. The last sight wasn't unusual, for children in the Gavaldon did little besides read their fairy tales. But today Rarity noticed their eyes, wild, frenzied, scouring each page as if their lives depended on it. Four years ago, she had seen the same desperation to avoid the curse, but it wasn't her turn then. The School Master took only past their twelfth year, those who could no longer disguise as children.

Now her turn had come.

As she slogged up Graves Hill, picnic basket in hoof, Rarity felt her legs burn. Had these limbs thickened her legs? All the princesses in storybooks had the same perfect proportions; thick thighs were as unlikely as a hooked muzzle or big hoofs. Feeling anxious, Rarity distracted herself by counting her good deeds from the day before. First, she had fed the lake's geese a blend of lentils and leeks (a natural laxative to offset cheese thrown by oafish children). Then she had donated homemade lemonwood face wash to the town orphanage (for, as she insisted to the befuddled benefactor "Proper skin care is the greatest deed of all"). Finally she had put up a mirror in the church toilet, so ponies could return to the pews looking their best. Was this enough? Did these compete with baking homemade pies and feeding homeless hags? Her thoughts shifted nervously to cucumbers. Perhaps she could sneak a supply into the woods. She still had plenty of time to pack before nightfall. But weren't cucumbers heavy? Would the school send hoofman? Perhaps she should juice them before she-

"Where are you going?"

Rarity turned. Autumn smiled at her with buckteeth and anemically brown mane. She lived nowhere near Graves Hill but had a habit to stalk her for hours of the day.

"To see a friend," said Rarity.

"Why are you friends with the witch?" said Autumn.

"She's not a witch."

"She has no friends and she's queer. That makes her a witch."

Rarity refrained from pointing out this made Autumn a witch too. Instead she smiled, to remind her she'd already done a good deed by enduring her presence.

"The School Master will take her for Evil School," she said. "Then you'll need a new friend."

"He takes two ponies," Rarity said, jaw tightening.

"He'll take Pound Cake for the other one. No pony's good as Pound."

Rarity's smile evaporated.

"But I'll be your knew friend," said Autumn.

"I'm full on friends at the moment," Rarity snapped.

Autumn turned the color of a raspberry. "Oh, right-I just thought-" She fled like a kicked dog.

Rarity watched her straggly mane recede down the hill. Oh, you've really done it now, she thought. Months of good deeds and forced smiles and now she'd ruined it for Autumn. Why not make her day? Why not simply answer, "I'd be honored to have you as my friend!" and give the idiot a moment she'd relieve in years? She knew it was the prudent thing to do, since the School Master must be judging her as closely as St. Nicholas the night before Hearthwarming. But she couldn't do it. She was beautiful, Autumn was ugly. Only a villain would delude him. Surely the School Master would understand that.

Rarity pulled open the rusty cemetery gates and felt weeds scratch her hoofs. Across the hilltop, moldy headstones forked haphazardly from dunes of dead leaves. Squeezing between dark tombs and decaying branches, Rarity kept careful count of the rows. She had never looked at her mother's grave, even at the funeral, and she wouldn't start today. As she passed the sixth row, she glued her eyes to a weeping birch and reminded herself where she'd be a day from now.

In the middle of the thickest batch of tombs stood 1 Graves Hill. The house wasn't boarded up or bolted shut like the cottages by the lake, but that didn't make it any more inviting. The steps leading up to the porch glowed mildew green. Dead birches and vines wormed their way around dark wood, and the sharply angled roof, black and thin, loomed like a witch's hat.

As she climbed the moaning porch steps, Rarity tried to ignore the smell, a mix of garlic and wet owl, and averted her eyes from the headless birds sprinkled around, no doubt the victims of the latter.

She knocked on the door and prepared for a fight.

"Go away," came the gruff voice.

"That's no way to talk to your best friend," Rarity cooed.

"You're not my best friend."

"Who is, then?" Rarity asked, wondering if Pound Cake had somehow made her way to Graves Hill.

"None of your business."

Rarity took a deep breath. She didn't want another Autumn incident. "We had such a good time yesterday, Twilight. I thought we'd do it again."

"You dyed my mane orange."

"But we fixed it, didn't we?"

"You always test your creams and potions on me just to see how they work."

"Isn't that what friends are for?" Rarity said. "To help each other?"

"I'll never be pretty as you."

Rarity tried to find something nice to say. She took too long and heard hoofs stomp away.

"That doesn't mean we can't be friends!" Rarity called.

A familiar owl, bald and wrinkled, growled at her across the porch. She whipped back to the door. "I brought biscuits!"

Hoofsteps stopped. "Real ones or ones you made?"

Rarity shrank from the slinking owl. "Fluffy and buttery, just like you love!"

The owl whooed.

"Twilight, let me in-"

"You'll say I smell."

"You don't smell."

"Then why'd you say it last time?"

"Because you smelled the last time! Twilight, the owl's spitting-"

"Maybe it smells like ulterior motives."

The owl bared it's feet.

"Twilight, open the door!"

It pounced on her face. Rarity screamed. A hoof stabbed between them and swatted the owl down.

Rarity looked up.

"Reaper ran out of mouse's," said Twilight.

Her hideous dome of purple mane looked like it was coated in oil. Her hulking purple dress, shapeless as a potato sack, couldn't hide freakishly purple coat and jutting bones. Ladybug eyes bulged from her sunken face.

"I thought we'd go for a walk," Rarity said.

Twilight leaned against the door. "I'm still trying to figure out why you're friends with me."

"Because you're sweet and funny," said Rarity.

"My mother says I'm bitter and grumpy," said Twilight. "So one of you is lying."

She reached into Rarity's basket and pulled back the napkin to reveal dry, butterless bran biscuits. Twilight gave Rarity a withering stare and retreated back into the house.

"So we can't take a walk?" Rarity asked.

Twilight started to close the door but then saw her crestfallen face. As if Rarity had looked forward to their walk as much as she had.

"A short one." Twilight trudged passed her. "But if you say anything smug or stuck-up or shallow, I'll have Reaper follow you home."

Rarity ran after her. "But then I can't talk!"

After four years, the dreaded eleventh night of the eleventh month had arrived. In the late-day sun, the town square had become a hive of preparation for the School Master's arrival. The stallions sharpened swords, set traps, and plotted the night's guard, while the mares lined up the children and went to work. Hoofsome ones had their manes lopped off, teeth blackened, and clothes shredded to rags; homely ones were scrubbed, swathed in bright colors, and fitted with veils. Mothers begged their best-behaved foals to curse or kick their sisters, the worst were bribed to pray in church, while the rest in line were led in choruses of the village anthem: "Blessed Are the Ordinary."

Fear swelled into contagious fog. In a dim alley, the butcher and blacksmith traded storybooks for clues to save their sons. Beneath the crooked clock tower, two sisters listed fairy-tale villain names to hunt for patterns. A group of stallions chained thier bodies together, a few mares hid on the school roof, and a masked colt jumped from bushed to spook his mother, earning a spanking on the spot. Even the homeless hag got into the act, hopping before a meager fire, croaking, "Burn the storybooks! Burn them all!" But no pony listened and no books were burned.

Twilight gawped at all this in disbelief. "How can a whole town believe in fairy tales?"

"Because they're real."

Twilight stopped trotting. "You can't actually believe the legend is true."

"Of course I do," said Rarity.

"That a School Master kidnaps two ponies, takes them to a school where one learns Good, one learns Evil, and they graduate into fairy tales?"

"That sounds about right."

"Tell me if you see an oven."

"Why?"

"I want to put my head in it. And what, pray tell, do they teach at this school exactly?"

"Well, in the School for Good, they teach stallions and mares like me how to become heroes and princesses, how to rule kingdoms justly, how to find Happily Ever After," Rariy said. "In the School for Evil, they teach you how to become wicked witches and humpbacked trolls, how to lay curses and cast evil spells."

"Evil spells?" Twilight cackled. "Who came up with this? A four-year-old?"

"Twilight, the proof's in the storybooks! You can see the missing ponies in the drawings! Shortround, Lyra, Applejack-they all got their own tales-"

"I don't see anything, because I don't read dumb storybooks."

"Then why is there a stack by your bed?" Rarity asked.

Twilight scowled. "Look, who's to say the books are even real? Maybe it's the bookseller's prank. Maybe it's the Elder's way to keep ponies out of the woods. Whatever the explanation, it isn't a School Master and it isn't evil spells."

"So who's kidnapping the ponies?"

"No pony. Every four years, two idiots sneak into the woods, hoping to scare their parents, only to get lost or eaten by Timber Wolves, and there you have it, the legend continues."

"That's the stupidest explanation I've ever heard."

"I don't think I'm the stupid one here," Twilight said.

There was something about being called stupid that set Rarity's blood aflame.

"You're just scared," she said.

"Right," Twilight laughed. "And why would I be scared?"

"Because you know you're coming with me."

Twilight stopped laughing. Then her gaze moved past Rarity in the town square. The villagers were staring at them like the solution to a mystery. Good in pink, Evil in black (or purple). The School Master's perfect pair.

Frozen still, Twilight watched dozen of scared eyes bore into her. Her first thought was that after tomorrow she and Rarity could take their walks in peace. Next to her, Rarity watched ponies memorize her face in case it appeared in their storybooks one day. Her first thought was whether they looked at Pound Cake the same way.

Then, through the crowd, she saw her.

Head shaved, dress filthy, Pound kneeled in dirt, frantically muddying her own face. Rarity drew a breathe. For Pound Cake was just like the others. She wanted a mundane marriage to a stallion who would grow fat, lazy, and demanding. She wanted monotonous days of cooking, cleaning, sewing. She wanted to shovel dung and milk sheep and slaughter squealing pigs. She wanted to rot in Gavaldon until her coat was liver-spotted and her teeth fell out. The School Master would never take Pound Cake because Pound wasn't a princess. She was  . . . nothing.

Victorious, Rarity beamed back at the pathetic villagers and basked in their stares like shiny mirrors-

"Let's go," said Twilight.

Rarity turned. Twilight's eyes were locked on the mob.

"Where?"

"Away from ponies."

As the sun weakened to a red orb, two mares, one beautiful, one ugly, sat side by side on the shore of a lake. Rarity packed cucumbers in a silk pouch, while Twilight flicked lit matches into the water. After the tenth match, Rarity threw her a look.

"It relaxes me," Twilight said.

Rarity tried to make room for the last cucumber. "Why would some pony like Pumpkin want to stay here? Who would choose this over a fairy tale?"

"And who would choose to leave their family forever?" Twilight snorted.

"Except me, you mean," said Rarity.

They fell silent.

"Do you ever wonder where your father went?" Rarity asked.

"I told you. He left after I was born."

"But where would he go? We're surrounded by woods! To suddenly disappear like that..." Rarity spun. "Maybe he found a way into the stories! Maybe he found a magic portal! Maybe he's waiting for you on the other side!"

"Or maybe he went back to his wife, pretended I never happened, and died ten years ago in a mill accident."

Rarity bit her lip and went back to cucumbers.

"Your mother's never at home when I visit."

"She goes I to town now," said Twilight. "Not enough patients at the house. Probably the location."

"I'm sure that's it," Rarity said, knowing no pony would trust Twilight's mother to treat diaper rash, let alone illness. "I don't think a graveyard makes ponies all that comfortable."

"Graveyards have their benefits," Twilight said. "No nosy neighbors. No drop-in sales ponies. No fishy 'friends' bearing masks and diet cookies, telling you you're going to Evil School in Magic Fairy Land." She flicked a match with relish.

Rarity put her cucumber down. "So I'm fishy now."

"Who asked you to show up? I was perfectly fine alone."

"You always let me in."

"Because you always seem so lonely," said Twilight. "And I feel sorry for you."

"Sorry for me?" Rarity's eyes flashed. "You're lucky that some pony would come and see you when no pony else will. You're lucky that some pony like me would be your friend. You're lucky that some pony like me is such a good pony."

"I knew it!" Twilight flared. "I'm your Good Deed! Just a pawn in your stupid fantasy!"

Rarity didn't say anything for a long time.

"Maybe I became your friend to impress the School Master," she confessed finally. "But there's more to it now."

"Because I found you out," Twilight grumbled.

"Because I like you."

Twilight turned to her.

"No pony understands me here," Rarity said, looking at her hooves. "But you do. You see who I am. That's why I kept coming back. You're not my good deed anymore, Twilight."

Rarity gazed up at her. "You're my friend."

Twilight's neck flushed red.

"What's wrong?" Rarity frowned.

Twilight hunched into her dress. "It's just, um... I-I'm, uh... not used to friends."

Rarity smiled and took her hoof. "Well, now we'll be friends at our new school."

Twilight groaned and pulled away. "Say I sink to your intelligence level and pretend to believe all this. Why am I going to villain school. Why has every pony elected me the 'Mistress of Evil'?"

"No pony says you're evil, Twilight," Rarity sighed. "You're just different."

Twilight narrowed her eyes. "Different how?"

"Well, for starters, you only wear black and purple."

"Because it doesn't get dirty."

"You don't ever leave your house."

"Ponies don't look at me there."

"For the Create-a-Tale Competition, your story ended with Snow White eaten by vultures and Cinderella drowning herself in a tub."

"I thought it was a better ending."

"You gave me a frog for my birthday!"

"To remind you that we all die and end up rotting underground eaten by maggots so we should enjoy our birthdays while we have them. I found it thoughtful."

"Twilight, you dressed as a bride for Nightmare Night."

"Weddings are scary."

Rarity gaped at her.

"Fine. So I'm a little different," Twilight glared. "So what?"

Rarity hesitated. "Well, it's just that in fairy tales, different usually turns out, um . . . evil."

"You're saying I'm going to turn out a Grand Witch," said Twilight, hurt.

"I'm saying whatever happens, you'll have a choice," Rarity said gently. "Both of is will choose how our fairy tale ends."

Twilight said nothing for a while. Then she touched Rarity's hoof. "Why is it you want to leave here so badly? That you'd believe in stories you know aren't true?"

Rarity met Twilight's big, sincere eyes. For the first time, she let in the tides of doubt.

"Because I can't live here," Rarity said, voice catching. "I can't life an ordinary life."

"Funny," said Twilight. "That's why I like you."

Rarity smiled. "Because you can't either?"

"Because you make me feel ordinary," Twilight said. "And that's the only thing I've ever wanted."

The tenor-rolled clock sang darkly in the valley, six or seven, for they had lost track of time. And as the echoes faded into a buzz of the distant square, both Rarity and Twilight made a wish. That one day from now, they'd still be in the company of the other.

Whatever that was.